To mark International Women’s Day, Ms. magazine has helpfully broken down some femme-focused reports from the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, detailing how the global group’s Platform for Action empowerment program is faring after 15 years and describing the challenges and gains that women around the world are facing in 2010.

The senator said not only did the car drive him to the gay nightclub, but it forced him to enter the club and party there for hours, resulting in his later arrest for DUI. (Editor’s note: Although Roy Ashburn is a real state senator who really was arrested on a DUI charge after allegedly being at a gay club, in this column Borowitz takes the liberty of manufacturing a set of quotations for satire’s sake.)

“In the present form, the Senate health care bill is going nowhere in the House of Representatives,” Rep. Mark Stupak told Fox News on Thursday, owing in part to the way in which the bill was passed—“the special deals,” as he put it. After Fox co-anchor Liz Claman reminded him that he “could hold this whole thing up” ... (continued)

If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life—while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.

Objection-raising robot Sen. Jim Bunning sure had his day, and his night, on Friday, what with his single-handed stymieing of the proposed extension of health care and unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans. But, as he pointed out near the end of Friday’s jousting session on the Senate floor, it’s not as if he wasn’t inconvenienced himself.

It doesn’t seem possible, but it could maybe perhaps be the case that some kind of resolution in the health care reform saga might be achievable soon. At least that’s the tone President Barack Obama struck in a letter he sent Tuesday to prominent members of Congress that included conciliatory language on the subject of four ideas advanced by Republicans at last week’s health care summit.

One of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats now faces a primary challenge on her left flank. Blanche Lincoln, who betrayed the unions that had supported her and who had bitterly fought off a public option in health care reform, was already headed for a tough race. (continued)

The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats.

As most recent presidents have done, Barack Obama has released the results of his annual physical examination. Doctors are reporting the president is in “excellent health” despite his continued struggle with addiction to nicotine.

With more Senate Democrats urging Harry Reid to revive the public option and pass health care reform through budget reconciliation, the Senate majority leader said Republicans “should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before.” Reid said the maneuver is used nearly every year, usually by Republicans.

Here we have Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, lending her interpretive skills to C-SPAN to talk up some of the details of Barack Obama’s health care reform proposal, which she calls an “opening bid” by the president ahead of Thursday’s big bipartisan health care huddle.

Now that Obama has finally put a health care proposal on the table, the Democratic leaders in Congress have only one rational course of action: pass the thing, and quickly, or risk their party becoming the loyal minority.

Somehow Joe Lieberman, who just finished demolishing health care reform, is leading the way on another big Democratic plank: The Connecticut senator will sponsor legislation to overturn the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Of course if the Democrats show any interest in his bill, he’s likely to threaten a filibuster.

Authorities continue to investigate why Joe Stack of Texas flew his small airplane into the Austin offices of the IRS, but based on early reports and a tirade the attacker posted on the Internet, it had something to do with taxes, big government, corporate crime and bailouts. (continued)

The ferocity of the tea party movement’s opposition to President Obama is mystifying to political progressives. Most of the left simply doesn’t see the current occupant of the White House as especially liberal, let alone “socialist.”

Some Senate Democratic moderates are petrified that Republicans will make terrible trouble if health care is passed through the “reconciliation process.” If Democrats are that intimidated by Republicans, they should just give up their majority.

When I heard Scott Brown, the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, describe himself as a “Scott Brown Republican,” I groaned. It sounded as if he’s coming to Washington to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Words won’t put people to work. Not even Obama’s eloquence—and he did reach that point on occasion—will be enough to inject courage into the gutless Democrats running from a mild heath care reform bill. Nor will words turn Republicans away from the unrelenting opposition they think will bring down the Democrats.

President Obama asked for a better health care plan, so here it is. Native people say “Avatar” is real, so there. But why are they digging up Leonardo da Vinci—and is there anything left? These stories and more on today’s list.